(Reposted from the Wichita Falls Times Record News)
Good ‘Connections’ United Methodist clergy band to perform Friday at church
Sarah Johnson/Times Record News
Monday, February 18, 2008
What do your get when you give several United Methodist clergy a guitar, a song book and few hours of volunteer time?
You get some great ‘70s music.
The United Methodist clergy who make up the band Connections perform a recent concert. Eric Folkerth, Paul Escamilla, Ann Willet, Frank Rahm, Rusty King, Kevin Holland and John Fleming have joined together with additional musicians to create the band “Connections.” The band will be in Wichita Falls Friday for a 7 p.m. concert at Trinity United Methodist Church.
“The band started at a clergy retreat five or six years ago,” Rusty King, minister of music at Spring Valley United Methodist Church, said. “We gave our first performance on March 31, 2006. It was a Dan Fogelberg tribute. The video from the concert on YouTube has been viewed more than 42,000 times!”
Everyone in the band shares the love of ministry as well as the love of music.
“The band was formed out of several informal get-togethers,” Fleming, vocalist for the band, said. “We all had been bringing our guitars to retreats for years and playing music.”
It’s not hymns and praise and worship you’ll hear at a Connections concert, but instead sets of soft rock from bands like Chicago and the Eagles. For the Wichita Falls concert, the band will play one set from Chicago, featuring songs like “Make Me Smile” and “Saturday in the Park,” and one set from the Eagles, with hits like “Desperado” and “Heartache Tonight.”
Although audiences hear only secular music, there is always an underlying theme to each concert.
“We do it for fun, but with the idea that it is a mission of the church,” Fleming, who was formerly the senior pastor of First United Methodist of Henrietta, said. “The band members who do the introductions for each song try to tie them into faith themes.”
 The all-volunteer band charges no admission fees for the shows, but an offering is collected that goes to the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
“UMCOR does mostly disaster relief, and people were on the ground in Central Texas for the floods, the coast for Katrina and internationally for the tsunami,” Fleming said.
Connections has performed at several large churches in the Dallas area, where most of the members live, along with the annual clergy retreat at Lake Texoma. Along with Chicago and the Eagles, the band pays tribute to James Taylor and Carole King. To date, more than $20,000 has been raised through the concerts.
“I look at it as raising money is only a side benefit of this band,” Fleming said. “The real opportunity is to get people familiar with the church through secular music.”
Good ‘Connections’ United Methodist clergy band to perform Friday at church
Sarah Johnson/Times Record News
Monday, February 18, 2008
What do your get when you give several United Methodist clergy a guitar, a song book and few hours of volunteer time?
You get some great ‘70s music.
The United Methodist clergy who make up the band Connections perform a recent concert. Eric Folkerth, Paul Escamilla, Ann Willet, Frank Rahm, Rusty King, Kevin Holland and John Fleming have joined together with additional musicians to create the band “Connections.” The band will be in Wichita Falls Friday for a 7 p.m. concert at Trinity United Methodist Church.
“The band started at a clergy retreat five or six years ago,” Rusty King, minister of music at Spring Valley United Methodist Church, said. “We gave our first performance on March 31, 2006. It was a Dan Fogelberg tribute. The video from the concert on YouTube has been viewed more than 42,000 times!”
Everyone in the band shares the love of ministry as well as the love of music.
“The band was formed out of several informal get-togethers,” Fleming, vocalist for the band, said. “We all had been bringing our guitars to retreats for years and playing music.”
It’s not hymns and praise and worship you’ll hear at a Connections concert, but instead sets of soft rock from bands like Chicago and the Eagles. For the Wichita Falls concert, the band will play one set from Chicago, featuring songs like “Make Me Smile” and “Saturday in the Park,” and one set from the Eagles, with hits like “Desperado” and “Heartache Tonight.”
Although audiences hear only secular music, there is always an underlying theme to each concert.
“We do it for fun, but with the idea that it is a mission of the church,” Fleming, who was formerly the senior pastor of First United Methodist of Henrietta, said. “The band members who do the introductions for each song try to tie them into faith themes.”
 The all-volunteer band charges no admission fees for the shows, but an offering is collected that goes to the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
“UMCOR does mostly disaster relief, and people were on the ground in Central Texas for the floods, the coast for Katrina and internationally for the tsunami,” Fleming said.
Connections has performed at several large churches in the Dallas area, where most of the members live, along with the annual clergy retreat at Lake Texoma. Along with Chicago and the Eagles, the band pays tribute to James Taylor and Carole King. To date, more than $20,000 has been raised through the concerts.
“I look at it as raising money is only a side benefit of this band,” Fleming said. “The real opportunity is to get people familiar with the church through secular music.”